Hiring quality employees is one of the toughest and most important challenges a manager faces. Good employees are critical to the success of the organization, while poor employees can be the downfall. The art of hiring is one that eludes many managers who do not have the skills and instincts to select the best employee. The process can leave hiring managers as nervous as the job seekers.

The key to successful hiring is making informed decisions. Managers must have a very clear picture of the requirements for the job and must have the skills and tools to select the best match.

The first step to a successful hire is to understand and communicate the required skills and traits for the job. These are the “qualifiers”. The qualifiers should be prioritized and identified as either critical for success or nice to have. Identifying qualifiers helps create an effective job posting and serves as a template for screening and interviewing. This is also the right time to identify “disqualifiers” – things that will make an applicant unacceptable.

The next step is to screen and interview applicants. Applicants should be evaluated on how well they meet the qualifiers and the quality of their character. The interview process is the opportunity to discuss the applicant’s background and get more information about their experience and skills. As evidenced by the thousands of books and articles advising on successful interviewing, there are countless ways to achieve this. For example, a higher level job might require multiple formal interviews and testing and assessment, while entry level jobs require only one simple screening. Over time, hiring managers develop a style that works for them.

The point of screening and interviewing is to learn as much as possible about the employee to make an informed decision and hire the right person. Applicants are on their best behavior and present themselves in the best possible light. It can be difficult to know if applicants are trustworthy and whether they are giving you the full account of their background.

Employment screening services by a third party can eliminate some of that uncertainty. Screening services can include drug testing, criminal background checks, license verifications, reference verifications, and employment verifications. These screenings quickly and cost-effectively eliminate “disqualified” applicants. This narrows the hiring field down to qualified applicants only and avoids the expense and disruption of a bad hire. Services such as pre-employ.com provide these functions at a cost that is well worth the information gained.

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While many human resource professionals used to be able to keep track of each individual that filled out an application or mailed in a resume, the internet has certainly revolutionized the way many applicants apply for vacant positions. Potential candidates can now send their information to multiple companies in a matter of minutes, and it is no longer possible to remember each person that expresses interest in a particular job. The good news is that an applicant tracking system can help a company keep up with the current technology that is making it so easy for job seekers to inundate prospective employers with their information.

An applicant tracking system is designed to streamline the selection process and makes it possible for an interviewer to search multiple resumes and applications at once. If a candidate is not an appropriate fit for a particular position, their information can be stored in a database and recalled at a later date. Few businesses have the space to store stacks of old applications and nobody has the time to spend countless hours reviewing the data. A well-designed system will allow the company to select search criteria and immediately review all resumes that have been previously scanned into the database that could prove to be a possible match.

Not only can a system be utilized to organize applicant data, but it can also help make the hiring process much more efficient. The pre-employment screening process requires a company to track every single step to ensure that everything is done in the proper order. Even something as simple as ordering a background check can be overlooked and cause an unnecessary delay in adding a new employee. Because there are a number of different legal requirements that must be met in reporting a new hire properly, a business could certainly be placed in a predicament if careless errors or oversights were to occur. A free applicant tracking system will help ensure that nobody falls through the cracks, and simply being able to show that one is being used can help in a labor audit.

It is no secret that hiring an employee is a process that requires time, effort, and money, but it certainly does not make sense to make the task harder than it needs to be. Spending money on advertising vacant positions is often not necessary for companies that have accumulated a database of prospects, and all it takes is a few quick clicks of the mouse to locate the best candidate.

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Having a successful business is hardly something to be upset about; after all, you are edging closer and closer to achieving exactly what many can only dream of. However, more employees also means a lot more work when it comes to hiring them. You have to keep track of them and make sure they are reliable and up to the standards of your company. This usually involves pre-employment screening, which also implies background checks and even drug testing. There is no reason to panic, no matter how much you may want to. All you need to do is consider Outsourcing the screening process.

Outsourcing means there is more time to focus on important projects. If you are too busy tracking applicants, reviewing background check reports and processing i-9 forms on multiple systems, you are less likely to fixate on what should be your main concern. When you are not distracted, your business can grow and flourish at a healthy rate. And when you have to pay expenses for pre-employment screening in-house, odds are you will be forced to pass on those costs to your customers. Outsourcing means both you and your customer base are happier and with fuller wallets.

Your business is taking off, but your sanity should not be checking out at the same time. Do not make what should be a thrilling situation into an overwhelming one. Outsource your HR department and you can go back to what is most important; getting your business where it needs to be, without the headaches.

When you are finally ready to take that step, consider a company like Pre-employ.com. They have experience working with growing businesses, and they can help get you where you need to be. Get through the growing pains as smoothly as you can.

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

Human resource departments juggle an extraordinary challenge when it comes to recruiting quality applicants. First and foremost, human resources professionals must decide which job boards, such as Monster.com, HotJobs.com, and state workforce websites, are most appropriate for their job posting. While this may seem like an easy task, it takes a lot of effort and strategic planning to look for the perfect candidate in the perfect place.

Attracting quality candidates has its price. Job boards such as your local newspaper classified ads, HireDiversity.com, and HotJobs.com charge a fairly steep fee for a basic job posting. Most job ads run between $150 and $500, and that only covers the basics of posting the ad. With these exorbitantly high prices, how is the human resources department expected to attract quality candidates and still maintain their budget? The solution can be found in evaluating the position type against the source on which you plan to recruit. For example, human resources would not place a janitorial position on an internet job board designed specifically for executive level recruitment.

An even more daunting task befalls the human resources department when it comes to keeping track of its applicants. Both federal and state laws mandate how applications must be maintained and tracked for diversity and demographic purposes, and also to protect the employer in the event of a lawsuit. Applicant tracking in a large firm requires a software-based applicant tracking system to keep track of the large number of applicants. These software programs allow the user to utilize a web-based applicant tracking system to input the candidate's information and track the candidate from the time of application through the course of the employee's employment with the company. The size and structure of the company will dictate how the human resources team will track pre- and post-employment activities.

Firms may find it more convenient to outsource their applicant tracking system. Outsourcing the recruitment and applicant tracking system allows human resources to focus on what's most important to them - their employees.

Applicant tracking is never an easy task. Finding a decent, reputable company to manage all your high-volume recruitment needs is arguably the best option for organizations with rapidly changing recruitment needs.

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The success of just about any business is highly dependent on the quality of the company's staff. A strong human resources department is essential in the development of that staff. As unemployment continues to rise around the world many human resource departments are becoming overwhelmed with the amount of resumes they have to sift through in order to find competent applicants. Technology, such as pre-applicant screening, has helped curtail some of that but it cannot account for increasingly desperate applicants who might be willing to pump up their resume to get noticed. Resume dishonesty is a big problem for any human resource department and it's getting worse as people are becoming more and more desperate to stand out from the crowd.

One way to combat issues with resume dishonesty is to use employment background screening services. These services reach out to companies on behalf of the human resource department to confirm things like dates of employment, salary history, and job title and duties as well as education verifications. These services can be implemented after the initial qualification screening (often automated) and before the applicants get to the hiring representative.

CareerBuilder.Com published a survey where 8% of workers said they had fudged their resume in some way while 49% of employers, in the same survey, said they had found applicants stretching the truth in some way on their resumes. 57% of those employers said they immediately disqualified those applicants.

Over the past few years the ability to either pre-screen out unqualified applicants or filter them out on a background check has increased significantly. Advances in technology, viewing the social media profiles of potential employees for data discrepancies, and advanced background checking services have all contributed to the ability of human resources departments to filter out unqualified applicants. Many of the technologies used are becoming less costly as they become more automated so the future appears brighter for those smaller companies who can't quite afford the technology right now. It is still a difficult task because some companies cannot afford these measures and when that is combined with the increased applications being received HR departments still have difficulty in making sure they are hiring the right candidates.

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!